We believe that overall it will be self-financing, but at the time we will set aside the resource that we believe is necessary. I don’t believe at this stage we can say how much it will cost upfront ... I don’t believe it will run to billions and billions of pounds.

PFI funds based offshore could receive less compensation, Labour says

Labour has put out a briefing note with more details about its plans to wind up PFI contracts. It says PFI firms based offshore could receive less compensation.

In a section of the briefing saying “What Labour would do”, it says:

1 - Review, in conjunction with local authorities, NHS Trusts and other public bodies, all PFI contracts to assess the SPVs’ performance on:

- safety, including fire risk, in PFI buildings;

- labour and equalities impacts, and wages;

- changes in equity ownership;

- quality of delivery on service and construction contracts.

2 - Consult on amending or repealing legislation which provides government underwriting of unitary payments to PFI companies whilst ensuring the sustainability of public sector budgets reliant upon previous forms of PFI credits and payments. Existing PFI schemes were supposed to remove risk from the public sector but have failed to do so.

3 - Consult on appropriate methods for returning the ownership and responsibilities of SPVs [special purpose vehicles] to the public sector, with shares-for-bonds nationalisation (via an Act of Parliament) the presumed preferred approach. Shares held in countries deemed tax havens may be compensated at a different rate from others. Differential compensation rates for equity held by pension funds will also be considered.

4 - Ownership of assets and responsibilities for services will be returned to the bodies who have been paying for them, and who no longer need to make unitary payments.

5 - Develop a new public sector design/construction model based on public investment that enhances public sector capabilities to plan, design, manage and operate public infrastructure. Examples we will consider include the USA’s construction management at-risk. Our intention is not just to take over existing assets but to build the capacity to deliver projects better in future.

6 - Enshrine the rights of staff to have rights kept or enhanced to comparable public sector standards on transfer to public sector bodies.

7 - End the UK government’s financial and advisory support for similar projects overseas.

According to the Labour briefing, 12 offshore infrastructure funds hold equity in 74% of current PFI projects. Nine of these funds own majority shareholdings in 45% of projects. The HM Treasury offices project is 100% owned by funds located in Guernsey and Jersey.

Khan praises Corbyn and says he will win next election

At last year’s Labour conference in Liverpool there were several dissident speeches from senior party figures (like this from Ian McNicol, the general secretary, this from Tom Watson, the deputy leader, and this from Carwyn Jones, the Welsh first minister), but the most remarkable was Sadiq Khan’s “in power” performance. He used the phrase 38 times, in a none-too-subtle indication that he thought Jeremy Corbyn and his allies were not sufficiently focused on winning the election. Here is the video from last year.

Of course, Corbyn still isn’t in power. But the party as a whole is delighted with the way he eliminated Theresa May’s majority at the election and, in his speech to the conference this year (only granted on sufferance) Khan probably had little option but to kowtow gracefully to the leader.

And he did. He started with a full and apparently sincere tribute to Corbyn.

Let’s be clear, Theresa May called this snap election to try and wipe us out. And boy did she fail.

It was inspiring to see millions of people vote for the first time - especially so many young people. And it was inspiring to see so many people who used to vote for our party return home to Labour.

We made huge progress in the general election and the credit for that goes to one person – the leader of our party - Jeremy Corbyn.

After that, he got the audience going by praising the emergency services for their response to the London terror attacks and to the Grenfell Tower fire and he orchestrated some sustained applause for the emergency services and health workers.

Otherwise, it was a relatively light speech. He ended with a burst of optimism.

Conference, despite the challenges we’ve faced over the past year - I’m optimistic, positive and hopeful about our future. I’m so proud to call myself British and to call myself a Londoner. I’m confident that both London and the UK have bright futures ahead.That we can become a more prosperous, safe and equal country.

And, Conference, I’m optimistic about Labour’s future too. Optimistic that we’ll build on the success of Labour in power in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Wales. That we’ll make more progress in the local elections next year.That we’ll make a huge difference to the lives of millions. That we can build a fairer Britain. A more prosperous Britain. A safer Britain.

And that Labour under Jeremy Corbyn will win the next general election.

Debbie Abrahams, the shadow work and pensions secretary, has just finished her speech to the conference. She said Labour would allow the women affected by the accelerated increase in the state pension age (the so-called Waspi women - women against state pension injustice) to retire early. She told delegates:

The acceleration of women’s state pension equalisation by this government has left hundreds of thousands of women in dire straits. I’ve heard of women sofa-surfing in their 60s, living off the kindness of family or friends, having used up all their savings, because they can no longer do the work they used to. Too often older people are discriminated at work, as well as when they try to get into work. A government minister suggested that women should go and find an apprenticeship during a recent debate!

These women feel understandable anger that they have done the right thing and that the government has failed to deliver its side of the bargain. I have been meeting with them on my national pensions tour. We promised in our manifesto to provide pension credit and additional support to the two and a half million 1950s women still waiting to retire.

As a starter, I can announce today that a Labour government in power now would allow these women to retire up to two years early.

In a press release, Labour says this proposal would be cost-neutral over the long term because an early retirement reduction would be applied to anyone taking advantage of this option and retiring early. The reducation would be applied to the state pension at 6% for each year that they bring their retirement forward.

Colin Talbot, a professor of government, thinks there is a lot of misunderstanding about PFI. He has sent me a link to a blog explaining why. Here’s an excerpt.

What irritates me most about PFI is not the mistakes that were made around it, but the complete (wilful?) ignorance of many of its critics in understanding what most PFI deals were.

They are frequently critiqued as PFI project X – e.g. build a hospital – will cost 10 zillion times what the cost of the hospital through direct state spending.

The misunderstanding, or “wilful blindness”, is quite simple – the PFI contract was not to “build a hospital” but to “build a hospital, do all the maintenance on it and provide all sorts of building and back-office services for (usually) its lifetime.”

The main bit of the “massive costs” of PFI therefore come from maintenance and service contracts for the life-time of the building.

Were these often over-priced – yes. Were they often badly designed – yes. Were the interest charges on the original capital build over-priced – often.

But what many comparisons of PFI and non-PFI costs do is ignore the fact that maintenance and services would have had to be paid for anyway. They compare apples and oranges by ignoring this. Certainly this is the case for many of the ‘politically motivated’ attacks on PFI.

Corbyn now more trusted than May on fairness, education, pensioners, NHS and public services, poll suggests

There is a new Guardian/ICM poll out today and it confirms that, since the general election campaign, Theresa May’s standing on a range of issues has collapsed, while Jeremy Corbyn’s has improved markedly.

In May we asked people who they rated May and Corbyn on nine policy issues. May was ahead on seven, and Corbyn was only judged better than her on the NHS and on improving public services.

Now May is ahead on just four measures. Corbyn leads on five, and in the last four months he has overaken May on making Britain a fairer society, education and pensioners.

Here are the figures.

Picture 43 Photograph: ICM

Martin Boon, ICM’s director, says:

Estimations and expectations of Theresa May’s performance continue to tumble though. In a direct head-to-head against Jeremey Corbyn on nine measures that we last tested earlier this year (14 May) the prime minister is trusted less now on each of them compared to then then. On negotiating Brexit, her lead over Corbyn has dropped from +34 to +14 with only 32% saying they trust the PM to do the best job on it.

On the crucial issue of economic performance, the PM’s lead has halved to only +14, with 37% saying she’d do the best job compared to 23% believing Corbyn would.

Over the last fortnight Labour has also opened up a modest lead in voting intention, the poll suggests. Here are the latest figures.

ICM also asked people if they supported the policy Theresa May announced on Friday of continuing to pay into the EU budget for two years as part of a transition deal giving access to the single market. The results were:

ICM Unlimited interviewed a representative sample of 1,968 adults aged 18+ on 22 to 24 September 2017. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results have been weighted to the profile of all adults. ICM is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules.

Starmer says he refuses to accept that Brexit has to be worse than staying in EU

Jessica Elgot

Sir Keir Starmer, Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary, has told a Labour fringe meeting he believes a Brexit deal can be achieved which would be as good or better than being in the EU.

Speaking to activists at an event with Labour’s MEPs, he said he was not prepared to accept that his children would grow up in a situation that would inevitably leave them worse off.

I hope we can reach a new arrangement that works for both of us. I say that because I do not want to get in to the approach that says: “It will never be as good as it was on the 23rd of June 2016.” I fundamentally reject that, I think if we work hard we can do better than that.

And I’ll tell you why I think that, I’ve got a six-year-old girl and a nine-year-old boy and I am not going to let them grow up with their dad saying to them: “It will never be as good as it was.”

I will work to make this as good as it can be and to prosper in the future outside the EU and that is hugely challenging. But we need some grown-ups in the room, we need to take our time and we need to have options on the table.

Starmer said Labour’s critics on the pro-Europe side who said the party were enabling a Tory hard Brexit were incorrect, pointing to Boris Johnson’s 4,000 article in the Telegraph, which he said proved the Conservatives wanted a “low tax, deregulation economy.”

The Labour party has not responded directly to the claim from John Appleby at the Nuffield Trust that winding up PFI contracts could cost more than £50bn. (See 1.32pm.) But a spokesman said shareholders would be compensated in the form of government bonds. Parliament would assess the appropriate level of compensations when contracts are returned in-house, he said.

The CBI did not like John McDonnell’s speech. This is from its director general, Carolyn Fairbairn.

The shadow chancellor’s vision of massive state intervention is the wrong plan at the wrong time. It raises a warning flag over the British economy at a critical time for our country’s future.

Business and politicians share a determination to create a fairer society in which everyone benefits. But the trickle of stalled investments caused by Brexit uncertainty could become a flood if these plans were to become reality. This would threaten the living standards of the very people that need help, from pensioners to students.

Forced nationalisation of large parts of British industry will send investors running for the hills, and puts misplaced nostalgia ahead of progressive vision.

Where Labour has engaged with business – from Brexit and skills to infrastructure and innovation – solutions have been found to deliver an economy that is both more prosperous and fairer.

The CBI looks forward to urgent discussion with the Labour leadership to find better solutions to the shared challenges we face.

One of the most popular and occasionally unusual events in Brighton has just taken place. Part of Momentum side-festival The World Transformed it saw shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth chatting to Russell Brand, the comedian and actor, who was likely to have been largely responsible for the queues around the block.

The pair were discussing addiction and the responses to it, a subject both have a personal stake in. Brand has talked and written publicly and often about his addictions, while Ashworth talked late last year about growing up with a father who struggled with alcoholism.

In moving opening address, Ashworth described growing up with his father, who died seven years ago, and the lack of help he got as a child.

That drinking was always there, and coloured my life. It was not unusual for me to go home, open the fridge, and find nothing but bottles of wine, cans of lager. It was not unusual to be picked up from school as.a ten-year-old and my dad was drunk.

Around 2m children are currently growing up with an alcoholic parent, Ashworth said, promising that if Labour took power he would seek to provide more help on the issue. “We’ve got to treat is as a public health issue as well,” he said.

Brand - who not long ago advocated people did not vote, but is now a supporter of Jeremy Corbyn – also argued for a more coherent policy on addiction, saying that while he was very aware of the dangers of drugs he felt they should be decriminalised and “regulated”.

Brand also spoke about what he said was the “social” factors pushing addiction. “There is a pathological element to addiction, it is a disease. There’s people that seem to have more of a propensity towards it. But there is also a social component to it,” he said.

In a way, addiction is just amplified consumerism, that’s what it is – the idea you can make yourself feel better by buying something, that you can make yourself feel better by putting something inside of yourself.

Winding up PFI contracts could cost more than £50bn, says health charity

John Appleby, chief economist at the Nuffield Trust, a heath charity, was on the World at One just now talking about John McDonnell’s PFI announcement. He stressed that it was hard to make a full judgment without knowing the full details of what was proposed. But he said it would be costly. Firms with PFI contracts would expect compensation.

Of course, it will cost a lot of money to do this. A big question is, is that an opportunity cost worth bearing? There are plenty of other things that we may want to spend our scare health money on.

The full cost could be more than £50bn, he suggested.

In the NHS in England, it is paying around £2bn a year in [PFI] repayments, and they will peak in about 2028, 2030. And I suppose if you add those up from now to the end of those contracts - the contracts end at different period - we could be looking at something like £56bn by 2048 in terms of payments. That’s a huge figure of course. That’s getting on for half of what we spend on the NHS today. Of course, taking these back into public ownership, as it were, doesn’t come free. And the money would have to come from somewhere, either taxes or borrowing or reprioritising other public spending.